The Home-Coming of Musical Analysis

Author(s): Hans Keller

Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 99, No. 1390 (Dec., 1958), pp. 657-658
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/938052 .
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December 1958 THE MUSICAL TIMES 657

The Home-Coming of Musical Analysis

Mr. Keller's Functional Analysis No. 3, on Mozart's Piano Concerto
in C, K.503, will be broadcast in the Third Programme on 7 December.
IN the March issue of The lMusicalTimes, Mr.
Ernest Bradbury, reporting on the Sixtieth
Annual Conference of the Incorporated
Society of Musicians held in the Memorial
Theatre at Stratford-on-Avon, informed us that
'the Conference branched out with some particu-
larly thorny musical subjects this year, chief of
them, perhaps, being Mr. Hans Keller's Functional
Analysis of Mozart's D minor Quartet, played by
the Aeolian Quartet, and already twice broadcast
in the Third Programme.' I am honoured that
Mr. Bradbury attaches importance to my new,
wordless method of musical analysis, but I do not
see what is thorny about it. In fact, one of my
chief aims is to take the thorn out of the flesh of
mrileir,iO 1 ,lvei17e
That thorn is words. Words in general, and
technical terms in particular. There is hardly a
single technical term which means something and
always means the same thing. The reason is that
terms are static, while music is dynamic. ' Second
subject', for instance, seems a clear enough
proposition, at any rate so far as classical music is
concerned. Yet what is the second subject in the
opening movement of Mozart's famous G minor
Quintet which, in its formal layout, can hardly be
called untraditional? Is it this?
Ex.l
J 1 1th I, J I ,-
, J
')b ~
4 eI ~. ,
I --
" pb9~~r~~ tmusic.
^ ""^W
r~' ' J 7 Now, what is it in music that is in need of
£mf P explanation? The fact that Ex. 3 is a new theme?
It certainly is the contrasting theme. But it still
is in G minor, the tonic key! On the other hand, by
the time the proper second-subject key is settled,
we have returned to the thematic basis of the first
subject:
_c^~~ ~~on
Ex.2
Ex~ 2' E
~ , _ i~-}
.,-=- = contrasting movements, hang together.
MSr^f•
9dS~~~11?;~X T'?~F
Iv ' ^ffm
r r ^r i
r tl
$ ..--~~~ s^"of
J33
L :
'r J 9 9 T,
7 Tb
J rf1^-j---
: y""^i~1"U
which anticipates the feeling of a codetta, a closing
section to the exposition. Thorns galore! The
truth is, of course, that the two aspects of what we
mean by 'second subject' (Mozart didn't know
the term), the thematic and the harmonic, are
split in this work. An abstract proposition, this,
which does scant justice to the thoroughly concrete
development of Mozart's thought; but there it is-
words.
In the D minor Quartet, the second subject is at
least in its proper key:
By HANS KELLER
Ex.3 -
1r--- ....
But what happens in the recapitulation? Melo-
dically, under the combined influence of the first
subject and the tonic key, the second subject has
moved away from itself, from its exposition, in
the direction of the first subject:
Ex.4
¢S I a
and the chief melodic contrast now is no longer
hat between first and second subjects, but be-
tween the second bject nd isef i.e. between the
recapitulaton and the exposition. 'Second
subc? Thorns! But when yo listen to m
analytic score of this work, how it develops from
the frstsubject into the recapitlaion of the
second back to the frst, and then only intothe
exposition of tle second, the whole evolution
becomes clear to you simply as music, whereas if
I attempted a close verbal description I would
have to change my very terms in midstream-
where the second subject ceases to be the second
subject. Terms are about defined meanings;
music
- is about developing ideas. Ultimately, only
music about music can explain music (so far as
is in need of explanation).
Can't we all hear that ourselves? Is not this kind
of awareness the sine qua non of experiencing a
sonata form? What indeed is the point in listening
to music if you do not hear contrasts as a matter
of course?
What my functional analysis is concerned with,
the other hand, is the unity of contrasts-the
'question of how contrasting themes, and indeed
The
- unity of contrasts is a background unity, for if it
were in the foreground there would not be much
a contrast left, and contrast is one of the basic
- i.{ elementsof good art; withoutit, thereis no unity,
merely monotony. But backgrounds are not
r ,- -" usually recognized as a matter of course, even
~Pk ~~ though they are instinctively experienced where
there is musical understanding: if we don't feel
that theme B 'belongs' to theme A, we cannot
really be said to understand the piece in which the
two form fundamental contrasts.
Wordless functional analysis, then, goes into the
essence of the listener's own emotional under-
standing of the music as much as into that of the
music itself. Personally, I think that any kind of
analysis which does not do just that is a waste of
time and worse: it replaces musical understanding
by an intellectual game which may actually dull
the listener's musical perceptivity.

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658 THE MUSICAL TIMES
At the same time, my method is not only
analysis; it is synthesis too. Since it is the elements
of unity which my analytic scores bring to the
fore, they inevitably put together the contrasting
themes they analyse. 'Composition' is indeed
the best description for the writing of a functional
analysis, whereas the term seems to amount to a
lamentable understatement when applied to
creation.
The result of this putting together can be
momentarily confusing for someone who does not
know the work so analysed. At the Incorporated
Society of Musicians' Conference, a gentleman got
up during discussion time and said that he had
been very much confused by the performance of
my analysis, that he had reached the stage where
he didn't know which theme was which. I replied
that this was exactly what I had intended: the
con-fusion, the fusing together of contrasting
themes. For the duration of the performance, I do
not mind in the least if the listener is unable to say
which is which. By his very confusion he shows
that he is experiencing the common background of
the themes, which is all that matters. Since there
is no danger whatsoever that he will be mixing
them up when he returns to the work itself,
neither he nor I need worry. ' Contrast and Con-
fusion' might, in fact, be an excellent title for my
endeavours-invented by someone who doesn't
take to them, to be sure; but I should not protest
against such irony.
Shortly after the second broadcast of my first
functional analysis, a Swiss critic-pupil, Mr.
Hansjorg Pauli of the Neues Winterthurer
Tageblatt, sent me a book about Bruckner by the
poet and musician Oskar Loerke. Mr. Pauli had
Johan Helmich Roman (1694-1758)
By DENYS DARLOW
R OMAN was born on 26 October 1694 in
Stockholm, and died on or about 20
November 1758 in Haraldsmala, a few
miles north of Kalmar. He was twice married
and had five children. His bicentenary is being com-
memorated in Sweden with concerts of his music
which will include a performance of his Swedish
Mass. In England, too, he has been remembered;
the Third Programme will be giving two concerts
of his music (2 and 9 December) preceded by a talk
by Godfrey Hutchinson.
It is not inappropriate that his bicentenary will
be commemorated in England, for it was in London
that he studied with Pepusch and possibly Handel.
Some authorities also state that he was employed
at the court of the Duke of Newcastle, although no
evidence has been found to support this claim.
That he took great interest in English music and the
English musical scene of the time there is no
doubt. Among his manuscripts, copied by his
own hand, are works by Handel, Croft, Stanley and
others; his textbooks include works by Playford,
Lenton and Keller.
His title 'The Father of Swedish Music' is well
deserved. Not only did he compose, he was also
Kapellmeister to the court, an accomplished
performer on the oboe and violin, and instigator
and organizer of regular public concerts in Stock-
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December 1958
shown an intense interest in functional analysis
from the outset. Perhaps his sympathetic attitude
was responsible for the choice of the book; in any
case I was vehemently struck by this paragraph
from Loerke's preface (my translation):
Again, there are people who, though unused to
abstractthought, are able to sing, whistle, or at least
picture aurally, all of Bruckner'smelodies just like
Mozart's; who know the course and meaning of his
symphonies as cheerfully by heart as the structure
of Beethoven'ssymphonies. Some of them want an
analysisafterthe acousticevent: it would be indecent
not to learn how to put in order a treasureone has
been given. But they don'tforget that nobodycan
hear a musicalanalysis and that nobodycan play it,
not eventhepersonwhohas madeit. [My italics.]
I do not think it is a matter of chance that some-
body who is both a musical and a verbal artist
feels the unmusical aspect of verbal analysis so
strongly, and has found the simplest, most natural
and most relevant words to describe it. However,
what Mr. Loerke says is no longer true. Everybody
can hear functional analysis and, in the not too
distant future, everybody will, I hope, be able to
play it. Musical analysis is feeling its way home-
to music. Home? Yes, although analysis was
never there before: it was born abroad. Maybe its
parents emigrated because they found the home-
ground too problematical.
I do not wish to stop others (or myself, for that
matter) from writing about music. The aim I do
wish to attain is to bring analysis down to acoustic
reality. The supreme test ought to be whether your
analysis could, in principle, be expressed by way
of music alone. If it couldn't, what can it mean?
The ear, said Schoenberg, is the musician's sole
brain.
holm. It was at these concerts that he introduced
to the Swedish public works by the most important
composers of the time (including Handel).
Being very widely travelled he was able to know
the musical standards, styles and developments on
the Continent. He spent two periods abroad, the
first of five years in England, the second a six-
month journey through England and France to
Italy and returning by way of Venice, Dresden,
Vienna and Berlin. He took back with him to
Stockholm a great deal of new music and many
musical impressions which he put to good account.
Apart from all this activity, he found time to
improve the standard of the court orchestra, and
did much to vindicate the use of the Swedish
language for the setting of sacred texts. His
influence was a decisive factor in the founding of a
Swedish tradition of vocal writing. By his travels,
linguistic gifts, general awareness and continued
correspondence with musicians in Europe, he
acquired a breadth of culture exceptional for a
Swedish musician of that time.
His compositions number about 450 and consist
of a wide range of orchestral works and choral
compositions. Among his chamber works are
sonatas for unaccompanied violin. It is not un-
natural that Handel and the great Italian com-
posers of his time, with whom he was well